Sheryl St. Germain
Sheryl St. Germain is an American poet, essayist, and professor.
She is of Cajun and Creole descent. Her father was Jules St. Francois St. Germain and her mother Myrl Marie Frank. Born and raised in south Louisiana, much of her work deals with the culture and environment of Louisiana. Currently she directs the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She has also taught at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, 1991–94; Knox College, 1994–98; and Iowa State University, 1998-2005.
She studied at Southeastern Louisiana University and University of Texas at Dallas,.
St. German's father, brother, and son died of substance abuse, and St. Germain has written both essays and poems that address substance abuse. She co-founded Words Without Walls, Words, a creative partnership between the Chatham MFA Creative Writing Program, Allegheny County Jail, and Sojourner House, a residential drug and alcohol treatment facility for mothers and their children.Books
- Words Without Walls: Writers on Addiction, Violence and Incarceration, co-editor with Sarah Shotland, 2015
- Navigating Disaster: Sixteen Poems of Love and a Song of Despair, 2012
- Between Song and Story: Essays for the Twenty-first Century, co-editor with Margaret Whitford, essays
- Let It Be a Dark Roux: New and Selected Poems, poetry
- Swamp Songs: The Making of an Unruly Woman, essays
- The Journals of Scheherazade, poetry
- How Heavy the Breath of God, poetry
- Making Bread at Midnight, poetry
- Going Home, poetry
- The Mask of Medusa, poetry
